Tricky French Disclosure Total Petroleum

Total (TOT) issued a press release on Friday which only goes to show how we need to integrate disclosure standards on an international basis. Total of course is a mega huge international petroleum company and has many things to disclose which are of vital interest to shareholders. Q4 and year end numbers were release several months ago.

But this time they have filed with French authorities a requisite document that contains the annual financial report, the report by the Chairman of the Board of Directors required under Article L. 225-37 of the French Commercial Code (corporate governance, internal control and risk management), the reports from the independent auditors and their fees, and a description of the share buyback program. The documents are available from their web site if you care to follow links and download, then read, then comprehend.

At the same time the company has filed their annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2008, with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday April 3, 2009. Again free downloads are available.

Legally they are on side in several jurisdictions that are not regulatory congruent. But the investor needs to do a lot of work in comparing documents before the entire picture is congruent. But before you get too upset Q1 results are coming out in May 6, 2009 followed by the annual meeting on May 15. The timing is the oldest trick in the book. Hold the regulatory necessary meeting to review last year, but focus investors on the latest quarter which of course is only the first quarter and not the full year.

Investors may have a generalized feeling that its hard to get a handle on the Total picture.

Rite Aid Finally Tidies Up

Rite Aide (RAD) announced Q4 results and year end calamities. They are dangerously close to losing their listing on NYSE and the stock has languished for years. Some stores opened, some stores closed, some got a paint job. They finally got around to writing down good will which has puffed up the financial statements. The press release is bland and talks about doing all the usual things; improve revenues, cut costs and reduce debt.

Given the languishing share price and huge over hang of debt all that is needed is a cash buyer who can come in and scoop up all the remaining chips. It should not take much more except maybe a little bit of long term optimism in the economy. Management is not sounding encouraging about anything. Why are they so boring right about now? Usually you buy because of great management. The new buyer would not appreciate the corporate drum beating up the share price. So who is the management group working for at this time?

The shareholders deserve a little bit more enthusiasm at this point.

CarMax Risk Factors

CarMax (KMX) released their Q4 financial results and of course the numbers are a tough read. Not unexpected given that they are in the automotive retail and finance business. To their credit they are not opening any new stores and seem to be working hard at reducing costs to reflect the new realities.

But take a close read at the risk factors that they identify in the press release. My favourite is the last one which most certainly came from the lawyers. It reads "The occurrence of certain other material events." This is a well known risk that most investors will intuitively understand and facto into their calculations. who could not miss and or account for the proverbial certain other material events. I think we can all agree hat there is too much litigation in the world. But when management agrees to put that one out you have to start wondering just how badly off they really are.

The other risk that they just throw in was "Adverse conditions affecting one or more domestic-based automotive manufacturers." Thanks for the tip. Define adverse conditions and why only domestic based automotive manufactures rs. The Detroit Three are clearly sinking; management feels that there are or will be risks the question becomes what are they doing about it.